


That Which Links Hope to Despair

by MistyBeethoven



Category: IT (2017), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Homecoming, Lost Love, M/M, Meditation, Miracles, POV First Person, Pining, Waiting, contemplations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 13:57:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20565488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistyBeethoven/pseuds/MistyBeethoven
Summary: Richie Tozier moves back to Derry and waits for a miracle.





	That Which Links Hope to Despair

**Author's Note:**

> This came to me this morning. I wanted a fix-it that still included that sad beautiful scene at the Kissing Bridge. It isn't perfect or great but hopefully it is okay, at least.

_ **"WORLD FAMOUS STAND-UP COMEDIAN MOVES BACK TO CHILDHOOD HOMETOWN"** _

Sometimes they change "_**Famous**_" to "_**Infamous**_" but it doesn't really matter, does it? The point is still the same.

It seems that while everyone finally managed to escape Derry, I really haven't. Even Mike was able to break the chain binding him to this stinkhole. Yet it's like with his leaving I was already chosen to replace him. If God exists, He's _really_ got to be the _ultimate_ stand-up comic with a sense of humour so odd and absurd that only He gets the punchlines.

This one seems to involve the irony of the guy who tried to hide his feelings, and his very own self, behind jokes and indifference, in the end, having to own up to the fact that he does love and care very deeply.

But what he cares for is no longer there.

Ha ha. Real fucking funny.

I still look for you, Eddie. Every fucking day I expect to see you here. I moved back to Derry so that I won't risk forgetting you and also because I keep expecting to turn a corner and bump into you or see you standing in some old place that we used to haunt.

And I still talk to you as if you are by my side or in my head or my heart. The day I stop talking to you is the day I trade in my hope for despair.

Every time I have to leave this crummy little town, so the legions of fans I have managed to trick into thinking that I am actually funny won't forget me, I feel some horrible panic take hold of me, compelling me to drop everything and come back here. My agent is beginning to believe that I am seriously _nuts_ and not just the amount alotted to any creative genius.

Speculation has also cropped up about my sexual orientation. I used to live in such big fear over that one. All I say now is fuck it. So I like other guys. So big fucking deal. Big fucking geniuses figuring that one out! Noble Prize time. Newsflash! The media thinks everybody is gay anyway. Their bound to get it right sometimes; that old saying about a broken clock being right twice a day and all.

The only thing they _don't_ know is that I can love only one man and he was killed by a child murdering mindfuck of a clown. 

I have come to accept the fact that I am gay. And I have also come to accept that you were my _one_ and that nobody, and I repeat _nobody_, else will do.

You want to know what's funny about being back in Derry, my man? What's funny is that I'm finally starting to give a shit about the people who live here. I'm not kidding. They are ignorant, obnoxious, boring, little assholes and I find myself caring for them. Maybe its knowing I'm better than them, hardy har har, or the fact that I constantly see them just trying to survive but I no longer hate them and they no longer look at me like "What the hell are you still doing here, Mr. Bigshot?" At least not so much. I open the door for them at the grocers or sometimes I even babysit for them. Maybe you're watching me from wherever you are. Maybe you are laughing. Probably your just shaking your head as you watch me trying to change Mara Huddleston's diaper and fail miserably.

Comedy is subjective, I have discovered. What makes you laugh won't always make me laugh. Oh how I used to _love_ to even just make you smile, Eddie Spaghetti! To know that I had brought you some joy and that I alone was responsible for that sweet curl of your lips. I know it must have seemed that I desired only your cringes and frowns but all of that teasing was only to disguise the fact that I _lived_ for your smile. Eds, Iwant to see that smile again. I will pray to a God, whom I am struggling to believe in, that He will let me see it even just one more time.

And if God really is a comedian I just keep praying that He will finally tell a joke that I will laugh at.

A lot of the time, I feel like I'm just biding my time until that moment. I feel horribly like Pennywise must have, waiting to be reborn. You count the seconds into minutes, and the minutes into hours, and with the passing of all that time I hope it will bring me closer to you. I'm talking about death, I guess, because that is inevitable and I hope I will be able to find you when I lose this painful agony that barely resembles life without you here.

But I'm waiting for something else too. And maybe that does make me bonkers.

I'm waiting for you in the flesh, or you in the spirit, you see, right here and right now in this cursed little place where we once grew up together. I want to hold you and tell you that I love you and not just the you in my brain.

Derry is evil. There's no getting around that. It's a breeding ground for monsters and not just the supernatural kind. But it also created us Losers. And, most important to me, it created you, Eddie Kaspbrak, and any place that does that can work miracles too. It's all about balance and it is about fucking time things balance out again and it gives you back to me. 

So I am staying here waiting for my miracle and praying that God will finally make me laugh instead of cry.

Standing on the Kissing Bridge, looking at our initials carved there, I know that evil and goodness are linked as are despair and hope. I now know that belief can conquer any doubt as long as you lose yourself to it completely. You taught me that.

In my despair, I still desperately _hope_ and _believe_ that I will see you again.

I walk away from the bridge, my feet taking me to the Paul Bunyon statue. There is a man standing in front of it. His back is turned to me.

Dear God, it looks like you, Eddie. He is the same height and build; he is wearing your shirt and he has your hair...I feel hope become a solid thing which can be touched. My heart is beating in my chest like rhythmic thunder. The person turns around and...

**Author's Note:**

> I think this was partly inspired by John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany" & a film called "The Orphanage."
> 
> I left it open-ended so you can choose between despair and hope. In my heart, though, I feel that the answer is hope and it was Eddie waiting for Richie by that damn statue. How the hell he got there I don't have a clue but, as both Richie Tozier and God probably know, miracles are like jokes: the best ones don't need explanations.


End file.
